Salo lingered at the porthole for several more seconds, scanning the heaving surface below for any sign of movement. When the water offered nothing but foam and dark swells, he withdrew, expression closed, and turned toward the deck. He needed to find Tinir and report that Joseph had gone overboard.
Directly above the shattered porthole, fixed to the ship's outer hull by the thorned vines of Hermit Purple wrapped tight around iron fixtures, Joseph hung in the salt wind with Shintaro tucked under one arm.
Shintaro's face was pale. His eyes were open and sharply alert.
Joseph did not act immediately. He looked downward and waited with the patience of a man whose instincts have kept him alive for six decades.
As expected — Salo returned.
This time he leaned half his body through the porthole, scanning the sea below before slowly raising his gaze.
"Now. Black Magician." Shintaro hissed the order through clenched teeth.
What answered was not the usual chattering swarm. A single pitch-black egg manifested — the size of a human skull, smooth, faintly pulsing with contained life. The moment Shintaro had woken in the cabin, this was the only form his Stand would take. Joseph hadn't asked questions. He'd taken the boy through the window immediately.
Shintaro hurled the egg downward.
In the same motion, he released Joseph's arm and dropped after it.
Pain detonated through his injured leg as he fell. He channeled Hamon into the soles of his feet anyway, forcing it there against the screaming protest of his body. Salo had just begun to look up when the black egg drove into his throat with brutal precision — the impact forcing his neck forward, soft flesh meeting the jagged glass remaining in the porthole frame.
Blood burst outward in a sharp spray.
Shintaro's descending foot followed, landing on the eggshell. The accumulated Hamon discharged through it like a detonated battery and slammed into Salo's spine in a single concussive wave.
The crack of a vertebra giving way cut cleanly through the wind.
Using the rebound force, Shintaro launched himself upward — but his leg buckled on contact and his trajectory faltered.
"Careful!" Joseph snapped, Hermit Purple already in motion. Vines seized Shintaro's arm and arrested the fall. With his other hand, Joseph whipped a vine around the main mast.
They swung upward in a wide pendulum arc, cleared the railing, and crashed onto the deck in a heap — rolling several times across rough planking before slamming to a stop against the tip of Polnareff's boot.
Polnareff stared down at them. "Shintaro? Mr. Joseph? What the—"
No elaboration needed.
Star Platinum, Hierophant Green, Magicians Red, and Silver Chariot materialized in almost the same instant, the air above the deck tightening with lethal purpose. Even Narancia, unable to see any of it, felt something change — a pressure difference, like a bowstring drawn to its limit. Cold sweat gathered at his collar.
Joseph pushed himself up and gave a clipped account: two Stand Users had infiltrated, explosives already placed, one on the deck and one below.
Shintaro forced Hamon into his leg and spoke quickly. "I've identified one ability. Corrosion — but it targets objects he perceives as high-tech. Complexity of the mechanism determines how fast it decays." His eyes moved across the group. "Limit communication from here. He may be able to attack verbal analysis itself. Don't say anything that reveals your thinking before he appears."
Kakyoin's eyes sharpened. One nod. He understood.
"Help me — help!"
Tinir had already taken the young girl hostage — his thick arm locked around her throat, one foot braced on the railing. He'd been startled to see Joseph on the deck; he remembered leaving that old man trapped below. Whatever Salo was doing, it hadn't been enough.
He tightened his grip. The girl whimpered, feet dangling above the planks.
"Come any closer and I snap her neck," he said, eyes fixed on Jotaro as the latter started forward.
He anticipated touch. Dark Blue Moon's barnacles would attach on contact. From there — drag him into the sea and finish him there, in his element.
"JoJo — don't!" Shintaro's voice cut sharp. He glanced once toward the cabin hatch — Salo hadn't surfaced yet. "At this range he could dodge anything. He wants you to close the distance. It's bait."
Jotaro stopped.
Tinir's face went rigid. Snarling, he hurled the girl toward the sea. "Then save her!"
Jotaro didn't lunge. He stepped back. Both hands returned to his pockets.
Tinir froze.
The disbelief on his face had the quality of a man whose blueprint has just been handed back to him with a red line through it.
Hierophant Green had already acted. Emerald tendrils extended over the railing and caught the girl mid-arc, wrapping around her with careful precision and delivering her back to the deck, where she landed in a trembling heap.
Narancia watched from the side. From where he stood, the girl had simply drifted through empty air and come to rest at everyone's feet. His Adam's apple moved. He kept his mouth shut.
Shintaro raised his voice, measured and deliberate.
"Insect. I've already seen through that nonsensical Stand ability of yours." His tone carried calculated contempt. "Parasitic contact. Maximum effectiveness in water."
He stopped speaking immediately.
If Salo's ability reacted to spoken analysis, one more word would be digging his own grave.
Tinir's pupils contracted. His gaze snapped toward the sea.
Iron silence fell across the deck.
Avdol moved without announcement.
"Cross Fire Hurricane!"
Twin spirals of flame erupted forward. Jotaro stepped aside without hesitation, clearing the trajectory as the blazing cross tore toward Tinir.
Tinir reacted fast — flipping backward in a tight arc, summoning Dark Blue Moon as he moved. The Stand's aquatic form shimmered into existence behind him. He cleared the inferno by a hair's breadth and landed near the cabin entrance, breath coming hard.
A moment later, Salo stepped up from the hatch.
One hand pressed to his shattered neck, blood seeping through his fingers, his eyes carrying the specific kind of murderous intent that doesn't require volume. Red Fear manifested behind him — megaphone tilted, rusted scythes catching the light with a dull, malignant gleam.
The Old Sailor stood nearby, still trying to make sense of what he was looking at. He adjusted his glasses and squinted.
Red Fear's megaphone opened.
A harsh, grating revolutionary anthem blasted across the deck — metallic, discordant, wrong. The moment the sound spread, the Old Sailor's eyes widened with something beyond confusion.
Black tendrils erupted from his tongue without warning. They writhed like invasive roots, burrowing into the soft tissue of his mouth with mechanical efficiency. Pain convulsed through him in a full-body shudder; he clawed at his own face but couldn't open his jaw. Only strangled, broken gasping escaped his throat as his complexion shifted toward a violent, suffused purple-red.
The melody continued.
Along nearby metal fixtures, rust began to creep — faint but moving, spreading like an infection with a direction.
Salo stepped forward, supported by the grotesque presence behind him, neck rusting shut around its own wound. Tinir shifted his stance near the railing, measuring the distance to open water.
The next move would determine whether the deck became a battlefield — or a grave.
[well, my day was quite shitty a family member got hospitalized and my new fic doesn't have any new reader or any feedback is it too expensive I don't know will post it on webnovel next week please support]
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